U+I tapped for £3.5bn Cambridge development

U+I has been appointed as masterplanner and promoter of a £3.5bn project to transform a sewage treatment plant in north Cambridge into a major residential scheme.

The regeneration specialist will be responsible for transforming the site (pictured), owned by Anglian Water and Cambridge City Council, into the large residential-led mixed-use scheme.

Working with its development partner TOWN, a developer and housebuilder, and a design team led by Urbed, U+I’s role will be to prepare a masterplan and design code, secure planning permission, deliver enabling infrastructure and sell development-ready land parcels to third parties.

The 120-acre site will be redeveloped into at least 5,200 homes and 1,000,000ft2 of office space. It will include a mix of retail, community and leisure space.

Regeneration work is expected to take 10-15 years to complete and U+I’s initial expectation is that the project will deliver circa £20-30m of development and trading gains over its life span.

The first stage will involve the preparation of a business plan to secure £193m of funding from the Housing Infrastructure Fund to relocate the existing sewage centre and remediate the site. The project was shortlisted for funding by Homes England earlier this year.

Matthew Weiner, chief executive of U+I, said: “We are hugely excited to have the opportunity to work with Anglian Water and Cambridge City Council on this prestigious site, which deepens our pipeline of PPP projects in the London City Region where we are focused, alongside Manchester and Dublin.”